Category: Tech News

Apple Advances on Self Driving Car

What was once human fantasy may soon become the norm. Self-driving cars are becoming increasingly common to see on the roads nowadays. And as they hit the streets in growing numbers, one company is making efforts to ensure driverless vehicles do so in style and with as less trouble as possible.

Last year, Chief Executive Officer of Apple Inc., Tim Cook dismissed reports saying the company was building its own self-driving cars, claiming instead that his firm was working on “autonomous systems” that will power a range of different products. However, it has since become clear that Apple is indeed working on an autonomous vehicle of some sorts under the name “project Titan.”

A Cleantechnicapiece claims that Apple’s self-driving car project is still in the works. The California-based company is said to have brought more people on the self-driving car project, including a Waymo engineer, Jaime Waydo. Apple also hired another notable personality in the person of John Gianandrea, a former Google executive and AI expert.

Ambition

The emergence of Tesla, Waymo, Uber and Google’s ambition to push the limits of innovation to deliver maximum comfort for passengers has led to breakthroughs in the quest for self-driving cars. Recent events suggest Apple hopes to join the train by manufacturing a driverless vehicle of its own.

If Mr. Cook’s earlier submissions are any indication, then Apple will stop at nothing until it has realized its goals. The CEO had stated that Apple’s then new self-driving technology was the “…mother of all AI projects,” which is “is something that’s incredibly exciting for us.”

Considering it’s a big rich company with a vast amount of resources and influence, there’s little to suggest that Apple’s Project Titan will be anything other than a success. The organization has all it takes to lay its hands on the right technology and attract the best brains to help speed up the project.

Steady Progress

It is not yet clear what form Apple’s self-driving car initiative would take. For now, however, it appears that the company’s autonomous driving team will concentrate their efforts on building self-driving employee shuttles in collaboration with Volkswagen, according to The Verge.

The tech giant settled for Volkswagen after talks regarding partnerships with Mercedes-Benz and BMW ended, per New York Times. It would be recalled that Apple obtained permits to test self-driving vehicles in California in furtherance of its driverless car ambition sometime in 2017.

The Drive reported that the company’s fleet of self-driving cars registered with the California Department of Motor Vehicles has grown to 55 cars. This makes Apple the company with the second largest fleet of autonomous vehicles in California after General Motor’s Cruise.

It may not be there yet, but Apple seems to be making continued progress with its self-driving car project.

Social intelligence is an integral part of business strategy, especially at present when social media is a major factor in any online marketing campaigns. It starts with listening to everyone who is mentioning your brand, products and/or services. These include customers, competitors, and industry experts, just to name a few.

Social intelligence allows you to better understand your customers, and allow you to make smart decisions when it comes to business strategies. You can achieve social intelligence by turning the social media big data into action and insights. It will be integrated into your business process and shared across all the company’s systems and departments.

Learn Social Listening

The first step of social intelligence is to learn social listening. You should be able to monitor social media for data regarding the company. This is done by tracking blog contents, Twitter, mainstream news sites, Facebook and other social networking sites, YouTube, forums, Flicker, message boards, and others.

By gathering data from social media, you will get better insights on how consumers and competitors view your company. It will also allow you to discover keywords and social trends.

Develop Social Programs and Policies

It is important that you develop social programs that are flexible. Just make sure that the right policies and standards are in place. These policies protect the employees and the brand. The social media policies should include what information can be shared and who can share them. Not only that, but also there should be a crisis escalation plan so that the company is prepared to handle any crisis in the future.

Turn Data into Useful Insights

Data is useless unless it has been analyzed. Social media measurement is more than just monitoring Twitter followers and Facebook likes. You should establish key performance indicators so that you can easily measure the business’ goals. When analyzed right, the social data can be used to come up with smart business decisions.

Find Ideas for New Content

When it comes to online marketing, content is still the reigning king. Social intelligence allows you to learn the latest trends that you can use for content ideas and marketing campaigns. By listening to your target market, you will be able to promote your products in the language they use.

Engage with the Community

Social intelligence allows businesses to engage with their target market in a more personal manner. Not only that, it fosters the development of a community around the brand. One way to establish a positive brand image is by engaging your potential and existing customers. It shows that you value their opinions. Communicating with them through social channels will inspire them to take action, improve brand awareness, and develop loyalty.

Social intelligence requires a lot of time and money. However, when done right, the investment will be helpful for the long-term success of the business.

Power, Grace and Beauty in the Palm of Your Hand

Powerful. Graceful. Easy to use.The iPhone 8 brings useful features you would expect from an Apple product. It delivers a meaningful, new consumer experience thanks to a faster processor, wireless charging, and an excellent dual-lens camera that offers a great way to capture images. But that’s not all; many other elements combine to make this superb device the quintessence of all some consumers so profoundly adore today. This review takes an in-depth look at these features as well as the pros and cons of the smartphone.

Build and Design

In terms of build and design, the iPhone 8 sports an old design in that it resembles the iPhone 7, 6s, and 6, albeit it is sturdier. The Cupertino-based tech giant re-engineered the chassis, adding a glass rear to the alloy casing in a bid to make the device more robust. The glass back, which is further reinforced by a steel substructure, is touted by Apple as “the most durable [glass] in a smartphone.”

Sporting a glass rear makes the iPhone 8 more fragile than metal-backed phones. That notwithstanding, the innovation gives it a much more premium appearance than previous-generation iPhones. The gentle curve at the edges blends well with the glass and aluminum to make the device more comfortable and easy to hold.

At 138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3, the newer model is also slightly thicker than its predecessor. It may not feature a particularly head-turning design, but the iPhone 8 boasts a cleaner look when compared to Apple’s older phones. This is mainly because much of the text at the back has been removed to make the device clean and more appealing.

There’s still no sign of a headphone jack. But the phone more than makes up for this with some general sound improvements. The stereo speakers have been redesigned for enhanced audio output (volume has been upped by 25 percent compared to the iPhone 7) and deeper bass. There’s also a forward-facing speaker equipped to provide clearer audio.

Processor

The iPhone 8 comes with Apple’s own A11 Bionic chip, which has been hailed as the most powerful chipset in the world. The six core chip delivers two low-performance and four high-performance cores. Both core divisions offer significant speed improvements on the A10 chip. The regular cores are up to 25 percent faster, while the high-performance ones are about 75 faster.

The camera also boasts an excellent color reproduction capacity, while the auto HDR feature works to create perfectly lit photos with more color and details. The selfie camera features a single 7 MP f/2.2 aperture, which doesn’t produce as many details in pictures as the rear, sadly.

Battery Life and Wireless Charging

The iPhone 8 is powered by a 1,821 mAh non-removable battery, which lasts all day on average use. The device is also the first Apple phone to offer wireless charging capability.

As the iPhone 8 does not ship with wireless chargers, users rely on Qi-Certified wireless chargers to juice up the device. At the time of its launch, the wireless charging was limited to 5W. However, it has since gone up to 7.5W following the release of iOS 11.2. The upgrade is still not fast enough when compared with Samsung phones which offer up to 15W.

Pros:

Wireless charging

Fast mobile chip

Dual-lens camera

Supports fast charging with 28W chargers

Good battery life

Features a home button

4K Ultra HD video at rapid 60 frames per second

Cons:

Large body

Dated 16:9 aspect ratio

No headphone jack

Old-fashioned look

Last Word

If you are coming from the iPhone 7 or 6s Plus, getting an iPhone 8 may not feel like a major upgrade if you consider the design. However, if you would rather a device with a better camera and wireless charging, then the iPhone 8 is worth considering.

Learn About the Incredible Antikythera Mechanism

As far as science and technology go, the Antikythera Mechanism is one of the biggest and most intriguing stories ever told. But what exactly is the Antikythera Mechanism and what makes it such a significant discovery?

The Antikythera Mechanism is a device used to monitor and forecast solar cycles. The mechanism, which is often described as the world’s “first analogical computer,” is believed to have been used by early astronomers to mark the calendar as well as predict solar and lunar eclipse by tracking the movements of the sun, moon, and planets.

The Antikythera Mechanism was also used to plan a four-year athletics tournament cycle like the Olympic Games. Technically, you would be right to call it a calculator, as it was used to add, multiply, divide, and subtract. In addition, the relic could align different cycles and show the position of the sun and moon in the zodiac.

The device, a complex system, comprises over 30 sophisticated bronze gears held in a wooden and bronze case that’s about the same size as a shoebox. These gears were used to control dials tracking the moon, sun, planets, eclipses, as well as the schedule for the Olympics.

When Was the Antikythera Mechanism Discovered?

In 1900, a boatload of Greek sponge divers was blown off course by a storm, forcing them to take shelter by the small Mediterranean island of Antikythera, per LiveScience. The following day, they went diving off the tiny island and found the wreck of an ancient trading ship believed to be 2,000-years-old.

The divers later retrieved three flat pieces of corroded bronze from the submerged ship, which many believe sank between 70 BC and 60 BC on its way to Rome from Asia. Researchers say the device was first made sometime between the second and early first century.

Two years after the discovery, Greek politician, Spirydon Stais, who spearheaded the ship’s underwater excavation, visited the museum where the treasures from the wrecked cargo ship were kept. While sifting through the items, Stais was attracted by some fascinating pieces of bronze, which would later be known as the Antikythera Mechanism.

The Antikythera Mechanism’s True Purpose Finally Discovered

In the decades past, scientists have made several attempts to find the actual purpose of the Antikythera Mechanism using X-rays and CT scans to look inside the device. Despite several efforts, it wasn’t until 1951 that Derek J. de Solla Price found the real purpose of the “computer.”

Assisted by Greek nuclear physicist Charalampos Karakalos, Price took a complete X-ray and gamma-ray images of the device’s 82 fragments. His research showed that the mechanism’s primary gear represented the calendar year, while the smaller, unconnected gears were designed to serve as the celestial bodies, cites an Independent article.

Advancing Technology

From fancy watches to bookshelf speakers, rapidly advancing technology continues to spawn new uses and sophisticated gadgets that are being brought to the market on a constant basis. Such is the reality of our world today that you could spend a whole day nosing your way through shops that sell tech gadgets that could turn your home into a smart house.

Here are the top new gadgets that will put you on the cutting edge of tech and make your life a little nicer:

FITBIT ALTA HR

The Fitbit Alta HR is a reliable fitness tracker that comes with enough battery juice to last you up to one week. It monitors your steps, periods of sleep, the number of calories burned, and heart rate. The wristband features an OLED display and syncs wirelessly to computers.

NINTENDO NES CLASSIC EDITION

This Nintendo mini console takes you back to the old days by adding a classic taste to modern tech. It packs 30 classic 8-bit games, supports two-player games, and allows nostalgic gamers to connect to any TV via HDMI.

SHINOLA BOOKSHELF SPEAKERS

The new Shinola Bookshelf Speakers are the result of a collaboration between Shinola and studio monitor specialists Barefoot Sound. The self-powered two-way speakers not only bring sound but also add color to your living room thanks to their neatly done hand-stained oak cabinets. They have been equipped with Bluetooth, AUX, and USB input to provide you with an array of options.

DELL XPS 13 (2018)

Sleek. Impressive. Powerful. Enduring. This 13-inch laptop packs sufficient punch to conveniently handle anything you throw at it. The XPS 13 has a smaller body than nearly all laptops in its category with an almost bezel-less screen.

SAMSUNG GALAXY S9+

If you need a device that offers something beyond existing standards and defines good quality, then you shouldn’t look past the Samsung Galaxy S9+. It may not seem that different from the S8+, but this smartphone is a class leader in its own right.

Being Samsung’s latest offering, the S9+ features a 6.22-inch infinity display with a revolutionary 2x zoom back camera that captures lifelike images. Its 3500mAh battery gives you up to 15 hours of internet use on Wi-Fi and 4G connections.

APPLE TV 4K

Apple TV 4K is arguably the best streamer you will find on the market today. The gadget lets you watch your favorite shows in 4K HDR and offers remote and Siri voice options for a premium experience.

SONOS PLAY:5

Wireless multi-room speakers don’t come greater than the Play:5. Sonos’ new offering not only fills your room with rich sounds but also links you to more than 80 streaming services worldwide.

You can connect the gadget to Amazon Echo or Dot. There’s a 3.5mm audio socket designed to enable you to connect a non-streaming audio device.

Amazon Audio System

Seattle-based American e-commerce and cloud computing company, Amazon has filed for a patent for its new audio system which detects and translates accents in real time, according to a Techcrunch report. The application tries to make accents easier to understand by adjusting a speaker’s voice to be similar to a listener’s accent.

If the innovation gets approved and is released in product form, it will make Amazon only one of several tech giants to introduce such functionality. The likes of Microsoft and Google have added such features to Skype and Google Translate respectively. Google’s Pixel Buds earphones also support the feature.

The Techcrunch report states that Amazon’s new program will be based on machine learning or aspects of machines. The machine learning methods involve individuals with a specific accent training different machines on speech for many hours. It is also believed that Amazon’s virtual assistant, the Amazon Alexa, with its global presence, will make the translation process faster and easier, thanks to a torrent of audio samples collected from smart devices like the Amazon Echo.

Amazon uses phone numbers, location data, as well as previous correspondence to identify the right accent to use. The application requires only a few words alongside previous accent data to detect how a user is likely to be speaking correctly. The speaker can also pick their accent manually.

An App Potentially Adaptable to Many Uses

If it ends up in a product form, Amazon’s real-time accent translator will have many applications. Users who travel far and wide and those who conduct international businesses could genuinely appreciate its ability to eliminate the accent barrier on the international scene.

Also, those who contact call center agents frequently will know how difficult it can be to understand some accents even if you speak the same language. The app will smoothen conversation, making it easier for a listener to understand what a call center agent is saying and vice versa.

A Dominant Player

The real-time accent translator patent signals Amazon’s intent to continue to expand its position in a market it already dominates. New data from the Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) show that Amazon has captured a greater share (70%) of the US smart speaker market, which in itself is experiencing strong growth.

Google comes a distant second with 24 percent market share thanks to its Google Home device. Apple’s Homepod ranks third with just 6% of the smart speaker market. There’s no denying that Amazon’s two-year head start gave it a helping hand. With competitors still playing catch up, however, the real-time accent translator may help the e-commerce giant to establish itself in the market further if released.

AI Security and Intelligence Services

The efforts of security and intelligence services to counter threats has led experts to consider using new concepts that are fast becoming part of our daily life such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning as a defense to boost skills for countering cyber-attack.

Industry experts have always believed that AI will have a growing impact on cybersecurity technology thanks to its potential to improve threat detection. Believe however turned to reality when Alphabet launched a cybersecurity intelligence system designed to fight crime on a global scale back in January. If one ever needed proof of how AI-based solutions will improve existing technologies and drive greater efficacy and efficiency in the war against cybersecurity, Chronicle is it. Before we proceed to discuss their impact on cybersecurity, it is essential to first understand, from a technical standpoint, what is meant by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence is an aspect of computer science that gives prominence to the creation of applications that engage in tasks that require mental processes of a high level such as memory organization, perceptual learning, and critical thinking.

In other words, artificial intelligence borders on the development of machines that work and react like humans by performing activities such as problem-solving, learning, planning, and speech recognition, among others.

What is Machine Learning?

Kris Lahiri, co-founder and chief security officer of Egnyte, in an article published on Forbes, defined machine learning (ML) as “a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that refers to technologies that enable computers to learn and adapt through experience.”

How Will AI and ML Impact Cybersecurity?

With technologies advancing very quickly, the sophistication of hackers is fast emerging as a threat to internet security. Cybercriminals continue to develop new attack strategies meant to avoid existing security systems. This makes organizations act defensively rather than proactively. The difficulty in knowing precisely what attackers are planning makes it hard to take preventive measures.

As the level of sophistication across the entire global threat landscape continues to increase rapidly, security outfits must use advanced tools to get ahead of the threats before they do any damage. Given their sophistication and intelligence, it is believed that the use of AI and machine learning tools will enable companies to detect, investigate and remediate breaches faster.

This is because AI allows organizations to automate complex processes for detecting attacks and responding to breaches. And since AI and ML work hand-in-hand, AI can leverage ML capabilities to enhance its abilities and evolve. In this manner, AI security solutions powered by ML can rely on ML use data from previous attacks to react to newer and similar risks.

Tech professionals believe that the efficacy of this approach rests on the fact that hackers build on old threats. Therefore, by deploying AI and ML, new dangers can be detected more quickly and dealt with before they do any harm.

Technology for Small Business

Technology is a valued resource for small businesses. Adopting the right technology helps give brands more flexibility and opportunities for innovation in product design and improves their business and operating income.

For most small businesses, technological advances are lowering transaction, transport, and communication costs, enabling firms to invest where they can be most productive and find the best combination of skills, investment opportunities, and business environment.

Here are some of the major technology trends that will streamline small business efficiency and productivity:

Internet

The advent of the internet offers small businesses more control over marketing, brand development, customer engagement and improves sales opportunities. Thanks to the internet, firms can now offer clients a more comprehensive value proposition that is tailored to their needs. What’s more, the incredible growth of the internet has helped position it as a powerful driver of economic growth, giving businesses the chance to streamline and consolidate their business operations with custom online solutions.

For instance, businesses now have the opportunity to improve business efficiency through a centralized database, which makes data easily accessible for all needs. Small business owners can also build an online presence by developing websites and utilizing various social media platforms to create awareness for their product and boost sales by reaching more people faster. Further, the internet offers businesses the chance to outsource labor they are too busy for or those they are not very conversant with.

E-Commerce

E-commerce is one of the major trends that are shaping the small business landscape. The growing number of internet users worldwide has necessitated businesses to be selling more online than through traditional brick-and-mortar stores. This is because owning an e-commerce store makes it easier than ever before for small businesses to reach tech-savvy clients who now prefer to shop and buy items through digital channels across industries.

Also, it is easier and cheaper to set up an e-commerce store than to maintain a physical storefront. E-commerce platforms such as Shopify, 3dcart, and Magento enable brands to develop an e-commerce store without breaking a sweat.

If you are on a budget, you can utilize a point of sale system such as Vend to create a cloud-based, mobile-friendly online store within a short time. Doing so will enable you to reach many consumers who due to convenience, addiction, and impulsivity, prefer to make secure purchases online. More so, e-commerce gives small businesses an opportunity to adopt technology that supports real-time commerce.

Digital Banking

Many tech-savvy clients nowadays value banking convenience. For this reason, they prefer to bank online than visit a physical bank location. This is gradually shifting transactions away from traditional banks to digital ones. And with millennials expected to rule the market, the switch might happen faster than predicted.

Blockchain

The blockchain technology is capable of causing significant shifts in the way small businesses are conducted. Its application in payments and money transfers, digital identity, distributed cloud storage, smart contracts, etc., is expected to cause shifts that will change the small business arena.

If anything can go wrong, it will most likely go wrong! Murphy’s Law sounds like an overly pessimistic philosophy, coated with a good layer of doom and gloom. Yet, for folks who lost all their Bitcoin in the infamous Mt. Gox hack, there’s not much that can be done when your cryptocurrencies become vulnerable to malicious intent.

If hackers steal your cryptocurrencies – you’ll probably never find them – even if you find them; the police, the government, courts can’t force them give it back to you – unless they choose to give it back. If they trick you into sending your cryptocurrencies to them, you can’t reverse or cancel the transaction. We are still living in the Wild West of cryptocurrencies and the onus falls on you to proactively take precautionary measures to protect your cryptocurrency funds. This piece provides a general overview of some security measures you can take to keep crypto coins safe.

Image Source: Business Insider

· Online wallets

For newbies stepping into the world of cryptocurrencies, online wallets are usually the first type of wallet that they encounter and use. If you buy your cryptocurrencies through an exchange, the wallet address they generate for you into which your tokens are deposited, is an online wallet. Some third-party non-exchanges also offer online wallet services. An online wallet allows you to access your coins from any internet enabled device because the data to your account is essentially stored on the cloud.

The danger with online wallets is that you are trusting someone else with the public and private keys to your tokens. If they are unscrupulous, they could corner your coins and use it for their own purposes. The fact that online wallets are internet-facing also makes them vulnerable to hacks – in the Mt. Gox hack, more than 500,000 BTC were stolen, more than $70M worth of Bitcoin was lost in the Bitfinex hack of 2016.

· Mobile Wallets

Mobile wallets are fundamentally more secure than online wallets, but they require a bit more involvement on your part than getting an auto-generated wallet address from an exchange. Mobile wallets are simple apps that run on your phone. Your cryptocurrencies are technically stored in the app as opposed to the centralized cloud storage that you get with an online wallet; hence, they are more protected from hacks. However, if you lose your phone or if the phone becomes inoperable, you can kiss your cryptocurrencies goodbye. If you download mobile wallets from untested sources, you could end up with a fake wallet with a backdoor breach.

· Desktop Wallets

Desktop wallets are a more robust version of mobile wallets – they have more space because computers tend to have more storage than mobile devices. Desktop wallets run on client applications on your computer; hence, you can only access your tokens from the computer. If the computer is not infected with malware or connected to the internet, it is practically impossible to steal your cryptocurrencies from a desktop wallet.

· Hardware Wallets

Hardware wallets are probably the best tool in the market for storing and keeping your cryptocurrencies safe from hackers. Hardware wallets lets you store the private keys to your cryptocurrencies on a hardware device different from your computer. You’ll need to connect the wallet to a computer to access your cryptocurrencies and send coins to counterparties; however, the wallet doesn’t need to be connected to a computer before you receive cryptocurrencies.

Trezor wallet for example, uses a combination of pin codes and a 24-word seed security mechanism. The most important thing about using a Trezor wallet is to write down the seed and keep it somewhere safe offline—don’t be tempted to store it in your mailbox or a notepad on your computer. The seed words come in handy for rebuilding your wallet even if your Trezor is lost, stolen, or damaged.

Source: Coindesk

· Paper Wallets

Paper wallets are designed to be a hacker- proof and secure method of cold storage. Paper wallets, when properly set up will give a lot of grief to anybody that wants to take on the practically impossible task of stealing your cryptocurrencies – the challenge however is that you will go through similar grief to access your cryptocurrencies. To set up a paper wallet, you’ll need to print your private keys or create QR codes of your keys and keep them in a safe, probably in a bank or similar location.

Artificial Intelligence is one of the most hotly discussed topics in the tech world today. Hardly does any tech conversation take place nowadays without the mention of Artificial Intelligence. This raises the question, what exactly is artificial intelligence?

As the name implies, artificial intelligence refers to the ability of machines to perceive and comprehend complex information. In other words, Artificial Intelligence is a technology that is built to function in a way that imitates how humans operate.

Applications that utilize artificial intelligence attempt to make the user experience feel much like interacting with humans. Like humans, artificial intelligence also develops skills through learning. AI programs learn and adapt by taking in information, processing it, and saving such data for future reference.

By their very nature, AI systems exhibit certain behaviors that are associated with human intelligence, including, learning, planning, problem solving, reasoning, and motion. Others behaviors demonstrated by the programs include perception, knowledge representation, manipulation, among others. To deliver useful and accurate information, the AI system is trained on the data it is fed.

The advances being made with artificial intelligence in recent times is thanks to improvements in machine learning, which involves educating computers to perform tasks based on examples instead of depending on programming by a human.

What Are the Uses of Artificial Intelligence?

The journey has been long. Nevertheless, artificial intelligence is gradually evolving into something that’s useful to human society. The knowledge displayed by machines have many applications in our community today. Some of these include voice-based personal assistants such as Siri, Facebook bots, Google Voice, as well as Alexa.

Artificial intelligence also has application in suggestive searches, behavioral algorithms, as well as self-controlled and self-driven cars that feature sophisticated predictive functionalities. Robots are also being used as personal assistants by humans to help perform tasks such as ordering foods, clothes, or even booking movie or flight tickets.

AI is also used in smart cars such as those being built by Tesla and Google. Other areas where AI is applicable include customer experience, entertainment, buying prediction, etc.

Types of Artificial Intelligence

Typically, there are two types of artificial intelligence: narrow artificial intelligence and general artificial intelligence.

Narrow Artificial Intelligence: Narrow AI systems are those that have been taught how to perform specific tasks without being directly programmed to do so. Examples of this machine are those used in Siri and self-driving cars. These systems are so called because they can only be taught to perform specific tasks.

General Artificial Intelligence: General AI systems are those found in humans, which are adaptable and flexible. General intelligence can learn how to execute different functions such as haircutting, bathing, building spreadsheets, etc. This type of intelligence does not yet exist in a software form.